Further proving that 2024 is indeed the year of elevated horror, Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo is finally swooping into theaters with its delicious mix of disquieting Euro-horror vibes and a gruesome fondness for the classic slashers that are still beloved today.  In those 80s gems, it was commonplace to take a wide-eyed American teenager, plunk them down in some sinister foreign locale, and then let the locals do their evil business.  Singer has obviously watched a few of these but is doing more than just evoking a trill of delightful nostalgia; he’s blending cinematic suspense with the often more starkly horrific idea of being defenseless in unfamiliar territory.

Uprooted from her life stateside, 17-year-old Gretchen (Hunter Schafer, Kinds of Kindness) is forced to join her dad (Márton Csókás, Sleeping Dogs) and his new family at a swanky German resort in the isolated confines of the Alps.  When they arrive, Gretchen meets Herr König (Dan Stevens, Abigail), her father’s unnervingly intense boss, who shows a decidedly creepy interest in Gretchen’s mute half-sister Alma.  While the family attempts to settle and heal old wounds, Gretchen works at the resort alongside Trixie (Greta Fernández).

Things start going sideways quickly, suggesting this serene holiday vacation spot holds secrets that aren’t meant to escape the woods.  The presence of Gretchen and her family seems to have stirred a dark figure that begins to haunt her and those in her orbit.  Strange noises come from the neighboring forests, and soon Gretchen suspects it’s not someone stalking her but some thing.  Feeling distanced from her friends at home and temporarily distracted by aggressively amorous guest Ed (Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey, The Vault), Gretchen puts all suspicious thoughts out of her head until a series of terrifying events reveal shocking truths that hit close to home.

Singer is a deft orchestrator of mounting dread in his sophomore feature, transforming the postcard-perfect mountain setting into a paranoid pressure cooker.  What looks sunny and pristine during the day becomes unspeakably ominous at night, with horrors always lurking just out of frame.  The collaboration between cinematographer Paul Faltz and Singer is critical; how they work on balancing the idyllic with spine-chilling is commendable.   The result is that Cuckoo can squeeze every bit of tension from the most banal tasks – even Gretchen’s night shift duties at the hotel might have you nibbling your nails from the nerves. 

Schafer, a breakout star of HBO’s Euphoria taking on her first leading role, delivers a performance that’s wired with adrenaline without losing sight of the fact that she’s playing a teenager.  Gretchen isn’t your typical heroine; she’s often unlikable and is not inclined to make herself charming enough to impress anyone.  And that’s why the role and the actress is so refreshing to watch.  There are many big performances around Schafer (hello, Dan Stevens!), and having her so compact until the film’s bonkers final act was a wise choice for Schafer and Singer.

I often struggle with how to take Stevens, mostly because he hides his Britishness behind such ridiculous accents.  His enigmatic doctor sports another doozy of a dialect, but it works in the spooky-kooky world that Singer created.  Red herrings are served up by the heaping spoonful throughout Cuckoo, with no one being truly trustworthy, even our leading lady.  All are well-equipped to take on this challenge, with Fernández being a fun comic relief and the chilly Jan Bluthardt in a tricky role that upends the expected take on answer-seeking desperation.  I’d tell you more about Kalin Morrow’s character, cryptically credited as Hooded Woman, but that would require going into plot points I’d be, well, cuckoo, to reveal.

What audiences are bound to notice in Cuckoo is the visual language of the film, which often conveys more horror through how a shot is framed or lit than any cheap jump scare ever could. The film is filled with nightmarish images conjured up by Faltz, with shadowy corridors that seem to go on forever and disturbing faces emerging from inky darkness. The stellar chase sequences and the tonally targeted score by Simon Waskow ratchet up the unease without ever overpowering the on-screen action.  Production designer Dario Mendez Acosta crafts spaces that morph from inviting to claustrophobic as night falls and foreboding forces come out to play.  

The secrets in Cuckoo are closely kept, and it may even require a second or third viewing to piece together how Singer has managed to wind this elaborate shocker so tightly.   It’s not impervious to falling victim to genre trappings, though, losing some steam as it begins to explain itself.  Once the intriguing ambiguity evaporates and the finer details are revealed, you almost wish Singer had thrown in one or two more twists to keep you guessing.  It doesn’t matter in the long run, though, because the journey until that point is packed with an abundance of suspense and genuine scares that I suspect many will be able to forgive a slightly wobbly landing.

I first saw Cuckoo at the Chicago Critics Film Festival in May, and this feathered fiend of a fright flick has been nesting in my brain ever since.  Now that it’s finally spreading its wings in a wide release, do yourself a solid and check and check it out in theaters with a packed audience. It’s brimming with a creepy charm and atmospheric tension, one that will call you back for another look.  Even as the mystery wanes, the chills remain compulsively potent.  Joining the ranks of elevated horror pics so far this year, like Longlegs, Oddity, and Late Night with the Devil, Cuckoo is a hell of a good time.